Preview: Halifax Comedy Festival
Seann Walsh, Lucy Beaumont and Shappi Khorsandi are among the names set to appear at Halifax Comedy Festival this month.
The festival runs from 23 to 31 October, with fifty events taking place across 14 venues in the West Yorkshire town.
Billing itself as Yorkshire’s answer to the Edinburgh Fringe, the festival will also play host to Fred Macaulay, Andy Hamilton, Jasper Carrott, Alistair McGowan, The Noise Next Door and Paul Chowdhry.
As well as film screenings, workshops and theatre, the festival will feature 12 top shows from this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival as part of their Edinburgh Express series.
The series sees two of the best up-and-coming comedians from the Fringe perform side-by-side, with performances from the likes of Andrew Doyle, Angela Barnes, Joel Dommett, Suzi Ruffell and Charlie Baker.
Tony Vino, who is both performing and running shows at the Festival, said: “During the Fringe, the whole city is alive with the buzz of creativity, laughter and desperation. Although not quite as all-engrossing, my experience of comedy festivals in other cities and towns like Southport, Manchester, Buxton and Leicester have a similar feel of expectation and joy (perhaps without the desperation).
“With the varied spread of top comedy stars we are bringing to Halifax this year it is a comedy festival the town can be proud of.”
Festival Director, Tim Fagan added: “For many years Halifax has been hosting and producing top notch comedy in a wide range of venues, and the idea of a Comedy Festival provided an exciting way of bringing together the energy, passion, skills and resources of the town together. Halifax is pretty much unique in having such a wonderful and diverse festival infrastructure.
“The town, which is full of wonderful hidden spaces and stages, is, in many ways, readymade to start a major festival. So if you couldn’t make it north of the border then Halifax is the next best place to come to see new shows by the biggest national names in Comedy and direct from Edinburgh.”
For tickets and more information visit www.halifaxcomedyfestival.com.
